Chapter 11: Think Before You Speak… Or Scream
Meg shrieked at the top of her lungs as she felt the ugly rat's paws run across her foot. She jumped into the air, shaking her foot, and screamed again. The screaming didn't seem to help the rat out, though. The confused rodent switched direction and once again ran over her foot. Meg let out another blood-curdling scream, and wrapped her arms tight around herself as she stomped her feet, trying to get rid of the feeling of the rat running across her foot.
Meg was crying by now, and she slowly backed up against the tunnel wall, only to jump away from it with a shriek when she felt another cobweb. Not knowing what else to do, she stood in the middle of the tunnel, stomping her feet and sobbing hysterically. When she thought she felt something on her foot, she couldn't stop the scream when it came once again. But this time the shriek chilled even Meg's bones.
Erik must really be on the other side of the Opera to not have heard me by now, she thought to herself, a tad bit confused as to why her "Knight in Shining Armor" hadn't shown up yet.
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Erik raced through the tunnel back to where the scream had come from. If it was Meg and something had harmed her…. He felt the adrenaline flowing through his brains as he ran faster than he ever had in his whole long, miserable life. He couldn't get his legs to carry him fast enough to get back to where the bone-chilling scream had come from.
Finally, he dashed into the tunnel that led to the outside door, hoping fervently that if it was Meg, that she had not been harmed in any way.
He was running so fast, that he nearly collided with the person that had screamed. Unknowingly, his hand automatically reached toward the Punjab Lasso hanging at his side. Before he could even grab it to wrap it around this person's neck, he had the biggest surprise of his life.
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As soon as Meg saw a shape moving fast towards her in the dark, she knew it just HAD to be Erik. Who else would be running at break-neck speed in a tunnel darker than the night? Before she had even had the chance to think about what she was doing, she flung her arms around Erik, sobbing hysterically into his shirt.
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Not knowing what else to do, and feeling very awkward himself, Erik hesitantly patted the poor sobbing ballerina's shoulder before gently pushing her away from him.
"Meg, what happened?" he asked softly, trying to figure out why in the world she would have been screaming like that when obviously there was no one that had attacked her. It made his blood race to even think about someone attacking Meg, though he had no reason why he should feel so protective of her.
When the blonde ballerina wouldn't answer (probably due to the sobs that were still coming out of her mouth), he asked again, "Meg, what happened? Are you hurt?"
Meg silently shook her head 'no,' but still refused to speak. Therefore, Erik grabbed her shoulder gently so that she was facing towards him once again. "Meg, you need to stop crying so that you can tell me what happened."
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Meg tried to stifle her sobs, really she did. But for some reason they wouldn't stop coming. She had no clue why she was still crying, when Erik was right in front of her, but she guessed it had something to do with the fear that she had just felt when that ugly rat had ran across her foot.
Stifling yet another sob, she gulped down the lump in her throat long enough to answer Erik. "It was terrible…. Oh Erik, I was so scared!" Once again she let her body act without thinking and let her arms wrap themselves around Erik yet again.
Erik quickly shoved her arms off of him, and backed away. "Meg, why were you scared? What scared you?"
Meg looked up at him with her eyes burning, and finally was able to fight back the sob that was rising up in her throat again.
"It was… a rat," she finally blurted out, the tears falling down her face at simply saying the horrid creature's name.
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"A rat?" Erik asked incredulously. All of this sobbing and screaming over a rat?
Meg nodded, not daring to lift her tear-stained eyes to meet his own blazing gaze. "You mean to tell me," he growled; stepping forward threateningly, "that all of this screaming and scaring me half to death was over a rat?!"
Meg nodded again, and let her head fall down in shame. Shaking his head in disbelief, Erik fought to keep back the yells that wanted so badly to come out of his throat. "I can't believe it," he muttered. "you screamed because a rat ran over your foot, and now you're still sobbing about it?"
Finally he realized that maybe scolding her wasn't the best way to get her to stop crying. "Meg, the rat is gone now," he said softly, letting his voice drop in pitch. "It's gone back to wherever it came from, and it's not going to run over your foot again."
Meg wiped her eyes with her hand, and Erik was horrified to see how blood shot they were. Yes, the tunnel might have been very dark, but his eyesight was better than most humans. Besides, living a life in complete and total darkness put that in his favor as well.
Suddenly it was as if Erik was snapped back from another world. He suddenly remembered what had happened before all of this, in the same exact tunnel. Showing Meg the way for her to escape from him, then letting his temper get the best of him, shoving Meg against the wall, her sobbing in fear, then finally her running away from him out into the light, to never return.
His voice was low and dangerous. "Madamoiselle Meg Giry," he snarled, "what do you think you're doing, in my tunnel, when you just ran away in fear less than an hour ago?"
AN: Duh duh duh! I seem to be in love with cliff hangers, don't I? Don't worry though! You only have to wait until next week to find out how Meg's going to wriggle her way out of this one!
Many thanks once again to those who reviewed the last chapter. This story is only going on because of you're faithful reviewing! Speaking of reviews…
((REVIEW pleeeeeaaaassse?))